The Burning (20 page)

“ ’E ain’t been ’ere two days and Moll gets murdered, gruesome like,” a man declared. “And now . . .
this.”

“Where was he, I’d like to know.” This from the proprietor, Mr. Watkins. Stephan could imagine him wiping glasses behind the bar in the taproom.

“Jest you go ask ’im,” the woman laughed. Her laugh was a caw.

There was a brief silence, then the whole room erupted in laughter.

“ ’Course, what did he know about the hunting box? It’s over to Winscombe.”

“ ’E coulda asked about it.”

“Ask Pillinger. ’E was takin’ the gent around.”

“I did ask Pillinger.” This from the proprietor again. “He says he didn’t show him the property. No reason to. It wasn’t to let.”

That stopped them. But only momentarily.

“
She
knows the lodge.” Stephan recognized Jemmy’s reedy voice. “She owns it.”

Stephan gripped the arms of the chair and leaned forward. They suspected Miss Van Helsing? As though a slip of a girl could murder four strong men!

“I hardly think she could have done what I saw down there. They sent Mrs. Stoadright in to clean it up and she fainted.” Watkins shut them up. “Don’t know who they’ll get to mop up all the blood, and . . . and parts.”

“Well,” Jemmy said reluctantly. “Don’t nobody know what a witch can do. Look what she did to me. Stole my soul, just about.”

“Don’t start putting it about you got no soul, Jemmy Minks,” the woman cackled.

“His soul was so small it wan’t barely a handful,” another cawed.

“Doc says she’s in some kinda trance. Maybe it happened when she killed ’em.” Jemmy’s theory was a little shaky, but he had captured his audience again.

“Maybe she ’ad ’elp. She and that stranger was nothing short o’ chummy up on the mountain the night Moll snuffed it,” another put in thoughtfully.

“Under what you might call ‘mysterious circumstances.’ ”

“He’s strong looking.”

“And those eyes.”

“He don’t never come out in the daytime . . .”

“Maybe . . . maybe they done all of them—the murders, I mean—together.”

“Bow Street runner’ll find out . . .” the woman said
doubtfully. “I gotta go. Don’t want to get murdered my own self.”

This was echoed by several others. There was the shuffle of a general exodus.

“Damn it, Peg.” Watkins banged a tankard on the bar. “I can’t evict him until the runner gets here to back me up. But he’s murdering my trade at the very least.”

Stephan couldn’t leave yet. But the bathwater might begin to boil around him.

MIRSO MONASTERY, MARCH 1820

The Daughters came for him shortly after sunrise with several monks in tow, unchained him, and to his surprise led him outside into the corridor. He had not been out of that room for months. The procession wound its silent way up and up through many stone staircases. They met no one else. This must be an unused portion of the monastery. At last they came to a single door, and went through it into a small stone room. Stephan was breathless from the climb. He looked around. Was this where he was to be punished? It had comfortable chairs, books, a chess set, the usual tapestries and carpets. And it had no windows. A good place to spend daylight hours. Very normal, except for the ladder in the corner that led up to a hatch in the ceiling. The monks put up their cowls. They were wearing gloves
.

They were dressed for going out into the sun. Realization flooded him
.

Deirdre motioned him up the ladder. Two monks followed him. When he came to the hatch he opened it. Dawn light almost blinded him. He covered his eyes as he was prodded from below and stumbled up, naked, into the day
.

He was on a tower battlement of Mirso, high above the main monastery below. The sear of sunlight on his flesh sent pain scratching over his skin. Stephan peered between his fingers and saw the Carpathian Mountains, their forested shoulders night-green, falling away to the valley below. The edge of the round area where he stood was crenellated stone and in the center were two massive wooden posts with chains affixed to them
.

Fear curdled in his throat. They were going to bind him here in the sun, naked. Pain from the light increased. His eyes burned, and he felt his skin redden. But this was faintest dawn. The sun would not come out from behind the mountains for hours. When it did
. . .

“Get along here,” the monk said, and prodded him with a staff. “We don’t want to be out here any longer than we have to.” Stephan staggered toward the posts. They chained him there, hand and foot, and scuttled down to the comfortable room below. He could hear the Daughters admonishing them to merge their powers and keep him from using his strength or calling his Companion. They were to change out every two hours to ensure that they didn’t lose focus. Their power hummed below him. Two started a game of chess
.

Stephan clenched his eyes shut against the light. But when the sun came over those mountains, there would be no defense. The worst of it was he wouldn’t die. The Companion would heal him, no matter the damage. But not before he had experienced what was for his kind the ultimate torture
.

Night, precious night. From somewhere far away he felt the sun set. His heart beat, his nerves sent signals to his brain, horrible as those signals were, his blood pumped. The Companion had kept him alive. Now it would begin to heal him. He had lost consciousness periodically, but when he did, the monks below came up and roused him, gave him water. He must have been quite a sight at the end, for they looked grim. For the last couple of hours the torture slowly waned, as the sun dipped below the mountains and could cause no more direct damage, but the hours at midday had already taken their toll, and their searing pain still lived in his body
. . .

The monks came up and loosened his bonds. He could not open his eyes. They seemed to be sealed shut. Just as well. He didn’t want to see himself
.

“Poor bastard,” one of them muttered. Their hands on his body made him want to scream, but his throat was so raw he had no more screams left. “What could he have done?”

Masturbate. He had masturbated, he wanted to shout. But his lips wouldn’t work. They pulled his arms over their shoulders, and the pain brought blackness
.

Stephan pushed the memory of his torment away. He sat in her room on the third night, staring at her, a book open upon his lap. The dim nursery had begun to feel like a cocoon, the long hours of night fraught with the danger of memory, yet insulated from the killing behind him and the terrible trial to come when he would chance all in a single contest with evil.

He wouldn’t think about any of that. He’d think about the girl. Her face, glowing in the light of the candle, sometimes seemed his only connection to reality in the dim swirl of night and memory. Why did he feel he knew her, that he had always known her? Perhaps his feeling of knowing her was what drew him to sit here, night after night. He thought back to the first time he had seen her in the woods. The courage of her rueful smile, her faint air of “otherness,” all made him feel a fascination even then. But it was when he woke in the cave that he had begun to feel . . . affinity.

He knew with a certainty he couldn’t explain that she wasn’t mad. But he wanted to know exactly what had happened between her and Jemmy in the courtyard. He wanted
to know what she experienced. Most of all, he wanted to know why she was locked away inside her body now. What had happened? What had he done?

The doctor had been unable to explain what caused it or the consequences, even under Stephan’s compulsion. He said a coma could come from a blow to the head, or if someone was almost suffocated, or from shock. Stephan was betting on shock in this case. But whether she would recover, whether she would remember all, or parts, or none of what she’d experienced, was unknown. The doctor said it seemed to vary patient by patient. Dr. Denton was no genius. But these were the conclusions of the various and sundry medical books he’d consulted.

Stephan flung Miss Austen’s novel to the floor. Not that it was not entertaining. It was, even skilled and insightful. But the book he wanted to read was laid out before him in a coma, unreadable. He thrust his hands in his pockets and slumped in his chair.

Her situation irked him, to say the least. What awaited her if she wakened from her coma? She had no parents living else her uncle would not be her trustee. Now her guardian lay downstairs with a weak heart and a tenuous grip on life. What would happen when even this one person who cared for her was denied her? Who would shield her from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and superstitious hatred then?

She might need shielding from a force much more particular. Van Helsing would return tomorrow, bringing the threat of a runner for him and another threat for the girl. He could keep Van Helsing out of her room, for a while. But if she recovered? With a lout like that in the house, was she safe? Without her uncle the servants were in no position to say him nay. And then there was the fact that she was suspected, however stupidly, of murder. Stephan chewed his lips.

Only his sharp hearing would have detected the low moan.

His eyes widened in shock. Her eyelids fluttered. He dove from his chair to his knees beside her bed and began to chafe her hand. She moaned a little louder. She was waking!
Thank whatever gods you choose,
he commanded himself. He would not be spared damnation, but at least his crime against her, whatever it was, might not be irrevocable. She was about to come to consciousness.

He jerked his hands away from hers. She would not like to wake to being touched. A stranger by her side? Not reassuring. Especially one whom she had last seen covered in blood and whirling darkness. But there was no one else. And he could not let her wake alone.

He mustered what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

Ann struggled up through layers of cotton. She had been aware of a presence near her for some time. It felt good. Safe. The air was filled with excitement and an exotic, spicy scent. She thought she felt a touch. That was just a dream, of course. Any touch would be excruciating. In her dream it was the stranger who was touching her. His dark hair, burning eyes, and full lips floated before her, just behind the cotton. She remembered his strong thighs. She had never noticed men’s thighs before his. She found herself idly wondering what he would look like naked. His chest would have dark curling hair. She had seen men without shirts. She would touch that thatch of hair. She had never seen more of a man than that, though. What would the rest of his body look like? The skin on his hips would be smooth under her hand . . . She would touch him . . . everywhere.

But that wasn’t possible. The dream seemed to recede, but so did the cotton. She let out a little moan of protest.
Come back!
Not fair. She wanted to touch him, but he was
gliding out of sight. She had to look for him.
Come back! I want to touch you
.

Well, of course she couldn’t see him! She realized with a start that her eyes were closed.

She tried to open them, but they were so heavy. The spicy scent of cinnamon from her dream still wafted around her. She wanted to say something encouraging to herself, but her words stuck in her throat. Maybe she would just rest for now.

But then he would be gone.

She tried again. Her eyes opened, though they felt dry and crusted, like a rusty hinge. The familiar sloped ceiling of her nursery hovered comfortingly above her. Safe. But what about the presence she had felt? Cinnamon and the smell of something else filled the room.

With an incredible effort, she turned her head.

He was there. Of course he was. He had been here all along. Somewhere inside, she was aware of that. He looked worried and relieved all at once.

“Miss Van Helsing, thank God!” He knelt beside her bed.

She wanted to tell him that he needn’t kneel. But all that came out was a breathy croak. Her mouth was so dry!

“Let me get you water,” he said, rising quickly. He turned back with a cup he had filled from her pitcher. He surveyed her for an instant and then leaned over, slid his arm under her pillow and lifted her head. How thoughtful that he didn’t try to touch her. He held the cup to her lips. The water coursed over lips and tongue and down her throat like a gift from God.

“Little sips,” he whispered. “There will be more when you want it.” He was right. Even now she was too tired to drink more. He set her cup upon the night table and laid her gently down. He looked . . . worn.

“Are you all right?” she croaked. After all . . .

The room went into a spin. After all, he had appeared out of a whirl of darkness in the cave, wounded unto death, and
she had touched him trying to bandage him. And then she had felt everything about him. Everything.

Her eyes went saucer-wide. He was a vampire, who had lived what, a thousand? Two thousand years? And she had been right there with him all down the ages, whether she wanted to be or not. She only remembered pieces. But what she remembered she experienced as if she had lived the events herself. And what experience! Wars, loves, hopes, fear, killing, and . . . very recently, pain and lust and terrible guilt. Through it all, there was the blood.
The blood is the life
. He drank blood. He was a monster, a vampire!

He started at her expression. Then faint sorrow and a resignation settled like weights upon his shoulders. They sagged. “I . . . am not like you. You remember that. But you need not fear. I will not hurt you, or anyone in the house. I will go to get Mrs. Simpson . . .” He turned away.

“Wait,” she croaked. Her mind was turning slowly, but still the impressions and images whirled through her. He wasn’t a monster. She had felt everything he was. He had a core of sympathy and goodness, however hard he tried to be unfeeling. Someone named Rubius, who looked like Santa Claus but was far more dangerous, wanted him to be unfeeling. But he wasn’t. And he felt like a failure for it. He turned back to look at her in surprise. He wouldn’t hurt her. She knew everything about him; all the bad things he had done, all the generous impulses, the selfless loving. She didn’t want him to go. “I don’t want Mrs. Simpson.”